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Some of the world’s richest people and sovereign wealth funds are turning their attention to student housing, with the increasingly luxurious and expensive purpose-built accommodation becoming regarded as a must-have part of their investment portfolio.

Housebuilder Countryside Properties boosted its forecasts as operating profits and revenues soared by around 40pc.
The Essex-based developer traded ahead of market expectations in the first half of the financial year, and announced that its Partnerships branch has overtaken its Housebuilding arm to become the most profitable part of the business.

The number of homes being built in England is 21pc higher than it was a year ago, reaching the highest level since the financial crisis.
In the first three months of 2017, 43,170 homes were started and 39,520 were completed, according to the latest figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Shaftesbury, the property company that owns swathes of London’s West End, has reported booming profits as shoppers’ desire for the capital shows no signs of abating.
For the six months ending March 31, the value of the FTSE 250 company’s portfolio grew 2.8pc to £2.55bn, while pre-tax profits rose to £102.4m, an increase of almost 27pc on the same period last year.

The number of new office buildings completed in London hit a 13-year high in the last six months, as demand for new space from financial services firms and the technology sector remains strong.
Around 3.9m square foot of new office space was completed in the last six months, the highest amount in a half year period since 2004, according to the latest Crane Survey carried out by Deloitte. Much of the development was planned during 2015, when confidence in the property market was at a high.
However, the firm warned that London could face a slowdown in its pipeline of new office buildings as firms reassess their options for staying in the capital in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Sandbanks in Dorset, Britain’s Mayfair-on-Sea, has once again emerged as the most expensive seaside town in the country.
Home to former Premier League managers and millionaire businessmen, the average price of a home on the glitzy peninsula is now just more than £664,000. Next in price is the sailing hotspot of Salcombe, further along the south coast in Devon, where a house will set you back £618,000.

Barratt is on track to build more homes this year than in any of the previous nine, boosting its profits to the high end of the City's expectations.
Shares in the UK's largest house builder rose 4pc on the news that its completion levels for the year to June are now expected to be around 17,350, which is the highest since 2008. This is a 55pc increase over the last six years.

Land prices are continuing to fall, but the decline has slowed on the back of a significant drop in supplies.
In the first quarter of 2017 the average value of bare farmland in England and Wales slipped 0.5% to £7,435/ acre, according to Knight Frank’s Farmland Index.

The boss of Ei Group has called on the next government to review the “concerning” business rates system, as he revealed a fall in profits at the pubs chain which is grappling with a £2.2 billion debt pile.

A slowdown in the take-up of pre-used office space and longer periods to close rental deals bumped up availability by 36 % last year and a further 19 % in the first quarter of this year, the survey by Deloitte Real Estate showed

The sale of several large-scale agricultural enterprises was a notable feature of the 2016 land market.
Although few in number, the size of some operations launched attracted significant attention from farmers and investors alike.
Farmers Weekly spoke to the agents involved in five of 2016’s large-acreage launches to find out what happened next.

The first time I met Ian Dick, the head of private housing at Newham council in east London, he took me on a walk to look for “beds in sheds”. It was 2011, and alongside criminal levels of overcrowding in private rental properties, there was a growing problem of people living in illegal structures in back gardens...

There were further signs of a slowdown in the property market in April, as the number of sales fell significantly, while fewer people took out mortgages.
The number of residential property transactions in the UK dropped by 22.5% between March and April, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

The UK housing market appears to be 'moving sideways' mortgage lenders have said, as latest figures show a drop in borrowing.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has reported a sizeable fall in demand for loans during April.

The number of new homes being built in England is at its highest level for ten years, according to government figures.
The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said 162,880 homes were started in 2016/17, with 147,960 completed.